With just a 30 percent turnout, the election of new Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was celebrated as a “victory for democracy” by major western media outlets. However, they blithely omitted to report on Santos’ role in the killings of over two thousand people presumably by the security forces while he was Defence Minister and his close involvement with death squads and narco traffickers. As one of Washington’s staunchest allies in Latin America and enthusiastic free-market champion, Colombia’s appalling human rights record and model of brutal political and social repression is news that doesn’t make the news.

The following resolution is from the 6th Congress of Freedom Road Socialist Organization:

The Freedom Road Socialist Organization salutes the heroic struggle of the Colombian people in their fight for national liberation and socialism, and fully supports their struggle for freedom from U.S. imperialism.

The National Committee to Free Ricardo Palmera is launching a petition campaign targeting U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. The National Committee is demanding the U.S. government immediately release the Colombian revolutionary and stop violating Palmera’s human rights. Angela Denio said, “The U.S. government is acting like a tyrant in Colombia and abusing Ricardo Palmera in a Colorado prison by chaining him from head to toe with the constant threat of electric shock. It is outrageous. Where is Obama on all of this? He promised to stop torture.”

In early November I received a copy of a death threat made against student activists at the University of the Atlantic in Barranquilla, Colombia. The threat was sent out in the name of the “United Self-Defense Forces (AUC)-Rearmed”. The AUC is the largest paramilitary organization in Colombia, though it supposedly demobilized due to government efforts. However, a number of organizations, from Arco Iris Corporation to Human Rights Watch, have reported that para-militarism is actually on the increase, often in the form of new or reconstituted organizations.

The National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Southern Mindanao hits the Arroyo regime’s much-hyped dismantling of private armies calling this merely a grandstanding yet empty move by Ms. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her minions to stem the tide of the people’s wrath against perpetrators of the gruesome November 23 Ampatuan massacre.

With the people’s seething rage and persistent calls for justice, leaving this case unsolved poses a threat that could lead to Arroyo’s ouster. As the Ampatuan’s Andal Jr. and other members responsible to the massacre remain unprosecuted, Mrs. Arroyo’s plan to perpetuate in power through a daring bid in the reactionary GRP congress is in terrible danger.

In August, a delegation of U.S. students, trade unionists and anti-war activists traveled to Colombia to meet with leaders in the struggle there. The Colombian Action Network and the Campaign for Labor Rights, two grassroots organizations here in the United States fighting against U.S. intervention in Colombia, hosted the trip.

“I knew what I heard in the U.S. media about the benefits of U.S. tax money and aid to Colombia was true only for the rich. I wanted to see for myself what the reality is for Colombians,” said Jeremy Miller, a member of the Colombian Action Network when explaining his decision to go on the delegation. Members of the Colombian Action Network and the Campaign for Labor Rights arranged meetings with peasant, indigenous and student groups, as well as with political leaders, unions, political prisoners and families of Colombians killed or imprisoned by the government.